Video: 'Enron - The Biggest Fraud in History'

(Wednesday, November 28, 2001; during the Enron scandal) — Enron Corp., an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas, collapsed today after would-be rescuer Dynegy Inc. backed out of an $8.4 billion takeover deal. Enron would file for bankruptcy protection four days later.

Before its Dec. 2, 2001 bankruptcy, Enron employed approximately 29,000 staff and was a major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper company, with claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion during 2000.

At the end of 2001, it was revealed that Enron’s reported financial condition was sustained by an institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known since as the Enron scandal.

Enron has become synonymous of willful corporate fraud and corruption. The scandal also brought into question the accounting practices and activities of many corporations in the United States and was a factor in the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002.

The scandal also affected the greater business world by causing the dissolution of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, which had been Enron’s main auditor for years.